That's okay, my will is good

I don't want to read about investment theory today, I want to walk the Skyline Walkway.

As you are, as you were

For the last six weeks of Macro, commencing Thursday, we have another adjunct ("Mr Macro"). I know him slightly from life outside university. What I know of him has made me very hopeful for these six weeks.

Today, six whole days before his first contact with us, he sent us all an email. Spot the difference in the following Blackboard announcements.

Dr Macro, whose assessment was due on August 20:

Mr Macro, whose assessment is due on October 8:

I'm even more hopeful now.

As I want you to be

It's halfway through week 2, and I still don't have any assignments to do. It's disturbing. It isn't likely to change much, either - in this entire trimester, I have only seven formal deadlines (plus one midterm that hasn't been scheduled yet). None of these fall in July or September. This leaves a huge amount of time for normal stuff, like reading and understanding material, which I would never normally have time for once the assignments are out of the way. I've been reading every day, and it's... bizarre.

Observation: the Commerce library is so small that you only need to look up every callmark once. Having found a book by callmark the first time, you locate it on subsequent occasions by your memory of its position on the shelves. It's pathetic how few books we have for a university campus.

Sunday morning is everyday

Today I dared to believe for the first time that I might actually make it. A week ago I was still in denial. Four days ago I started working harder than I've done in years. I haven't been outside since Wednesday. And tomorrow, I'm going to make it.

Make what? Before Monday morning, I have to write introductions and conclusions for both my Growth essays; finish the last third of the Metrics assignment; and do whatever revision I can get in for the Growth exam. Each of these things on its own is small, but together, they add up to a ridiculously busy Sunday.

Overboard and self-assured

The second Micro assignment is marked already and grades for everything, finally, are posted on Blackboard. My posted test mark took me a little by surprise - presumbly this is after scaling:

So I have 88% on assignment 1, 72% on the test, and 96.7% on assignment 2. This gives me a weighted internal mark of 84.2%, which is achingly close to the A+ I thought I'd given up on. The marginal utility of time spent studying for Micro just shot up dramatically; tomorrow morning I'll sit down with that textbook and, by god, I will read it.

The Micro exam is on October 28. Can I bring myself up by 5% or so in 15 days? Not sure, but I can at least give myself a good chance of a pure A. Having said that, last year's exam is heinously difficult.

Oh well, whatever, never mind

Against all odds, I handed in journal entries on time for four articles. Because of Easter the journal was due a day early this week, and I wasn't at all sure that I would get through all four. I finished reading the third of them at one o'clock this morning and then strategically skipped a long one from the Book of Readings in favour of a short one which only took me one hour.

NeoOffice is retarded. Don't download it. Don't use it. Don't donate money, despite their asking you to do so five times on every page of their website. Just steer well clear, okay?

Other things that happened today:

• The fat man hijacked the entire tutorial, and this time all of us were visibly pissed off. (Admittedly only six were present.) He wouldn't drop some retarded fucking argument that he wanted to have with Charles about how the articles we're reading are "valueless" and the theorising should be "simpler". "Simple" is not a word that has ever been associated with sociological theory, and he, as a 300-level student if not a third year, should know that. It came out that he hadn't even read the article we discussed last week, either - so clearly knowing more than he does won't be enough by itself to shut him up. (I should have expected that. Being wrong, or even having nothing at all to say, has not yet been any obstacle to him opening his extremely large mouth.)
• We had another guest lecturer, a woman from the gay and lesbian movement. She spoke at length about homosexual law reform and the Civil Union Bill. Unlike the average guest lecturer, she spoke well and with conviction while covering a vast amount of ground, both historical and theoretical. It was riveting.
• The fat man embarrassed us all by falling asleep while the guest lecturer was speaking. Not only that, he snored. (That's cos he's fat. If he wasn't fat he'd be able to breathe without terrifying little children in Singapore.)

If this sort of thing continues I'll start taking duct tape to class. Although with his powers of perception, it's unlikely that the menacing sound of duct tape ripping from a roll nearby will have any effect at all on Mr Fat.